I thought this question might be better off in this forum than in the "All Other Styles" section.

I've really taken a liking to the Stanley sound such as that used in the tune Pretty Polly. Does anyone know the basics of achieving this sound? Any recommendations for a book or DVD teaching the Stanley sound?

I've really taken a liking to the Stanley sound such as that used in the tune Pretty Polly. Does anyone know the basics of achieving this sound?

Ralph plays a lot of different stuff, but he gets a lot of mileage out of index lead forward rolls. For a simple example of this, you can play an awful lot of stuff by using your thumb only on the fifth string and your middle only on the first string. Your index then plays all the melody notes on any string where they occur (generally fourth, third, or second strings). Combined with a forward roll (IMTIMTIM), you get three melody notes per measure. While you can fit countless variations into this scheme, by playing around with it and listening closely to Ralph's recordings you'll get a pretty good start. Ralph also has a particular tone from his archtop banjos and the way he picks that you can come close to by picking fairly close to the bridge. Hope this helps to get you started, the best thing you can do is listen to old Stanley Bros recordings and play what you hear.

Ralph is my favorite, and I pick with index lead. But, the video at Homespun ( I have it) doesnt qualify as a pure intructional "How to Pick Like Me" video. I sure wish it did. He discusses his music, plays some tunes from start to finish, but I wish ol' Ralph would just say this is how I pick with my right hand and lead mostly with my index. This is never mentioned. DId I say, I wish it was?

There is a certain style of claw-hammer banjo playing that emphasizes a modal/ flatted7th note to the melody line. It gives the melody a haunting/ lonesone sound to the melody. As Ralph is an accomplished clawhammer player, ( he played this way before the 3-finger style), this , I am sure, drives the way he plays his melody lines and in turn, the way he sets up his rolls. Good stuff for sure. So maybe you might find an good old clawhammer player and hang with them for a while. Peace

I'm ashamed to admit I have limited Stanley listening material but love what I do have. Does he use mostly use G tunings. Specifically "Hard Times" and "Clinch Mountian Backstep". Besides his awesome playing and tone, I love his voice.

I'm ashamed to admit I have limited Stanley listening material but love what I do have. Does he use mostly use G tunings. Specifically "Hard Times" and "Clinch Mountian Backstep". Besides his awesome playing and tone, I love his voice.

Thanks, Tom

I believe he played hard times out of D tuning, and Clinch Mountain Backstep out of standard G tuning, capoed up 2 to the key of A

Yup.... Clinch Mountain Backstep in G capoed at the second fret. It's Ralph's playing and the sound of his archtop that inspires me most. I could listen to him play all day... there's something haunting about his sound.

i sort of gravitated towarrds incorporating a lot of stanley style playing.as was said above... roll hard and fast, let the index finger lead and pick the melody notes and also be prepared to use the index finger on the 4th string quite a bit.

Stanley "style," as explained above, is essentially heavy rolling with an index lead. It's simplistic and leaves little room for subtlety - adopting it will severely limit you both in terms of your musicianship and of your overall versatility on the instrument. If it's the tone you're after, you can;

1) Buy an archtop2) Play closer to the bridge3) Tighten your head

Ralph is one of the big Golden Calves of banjo playing - try not to worship him.

Stanley "style," as explained above, is...simplistic and leaves little room for subtlety - adopting it will severely limit you both in terms of your musicianship and of your overall versatility on the instrument

Hmm. Ralph seems to have done ok with it over the years. And not everybody necessarily subscribes to a somewhat narrow-minded view that virtuosity is the pinnacle of musicianship. Ralph's style of simplicity and taste is the perfect accompaniment for the raw and soulful mountain style of music that he plays. Alison Brown is certainly virtuosic and an excellent banjo player, but her typical style would completely clash with the Stanley sound in my opinion. Although I'm sure if she wanted to she could play just like Ralph, and doesn't seem to have let that limit her musicianship.

Stanley "style," as explained above, is essentially heavy rolling with an index lead. It's simplistic and leaves little room for subtlety - adopting it will severely limit you both in terms of your musicianship and of your overall versatility on the instrument. If it's the tone you're after, you can;

1) Buy an archtop2) Play closer to the bridge3) Tighten your head

Ralph is one of the big Golden Calves of banjo playing - try not to worship him.

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

Ralph's style may be simplistic, but there is something about it that I really like. It's got a very distinctive sound to it, and you know it's Ralph Stanley when you hear it.

I slowed down Pretty Polly using Transcribe! from Seventh String Software, and I was able to figure out the notes being played, but I must say, simplistic or not, it doesn't come easy or natural to me.

I love Ralph's picking, and am starting to get the hang of it.I now have an archtop with a tight head,and really enjoying it's sound. I just wish more bands would feature pickers with his playing style. I think Steve Sparkman is just what the doctor ordered for popularizing this style.RALPH 4 PREZ!

JamesGibson archtop"Nothin' like a crooked ole river to straighten my head right out."

quote:Yup.... Clinch Mountain Backstep in G capoed at the second fret.

Actually, Ralph played CMB anywhere he happened to have his capo at the time.

I have seen him do it capoed at both the 3rd and 4th fretts. Towards the end of a set, whatever the last song was, pretty much regardless of where his capo was, he would just crank right in to Clinch Mountain without taking a pause to take the boys out.

Didn't seem to bother Curly Ray Cline a bit either what key they played it in.

I really like Ralph Stanley too, but I must say when I try that style of roll and simplistic index lead it doesn't sound anywhere near as interesting. As far as Pretty Polly goes, it fell right out of a chord position I was taught for Darlin Maggie. Although the banjo stays in G tuning, it simulates a modal tuning by keeping the index finger on the first fret of the second string. The root (home chord) is played with the third finger on the third string. It's easy to play all the (modal) scale notes then with the third and little fingers. "Pret' Polly, pret' Polly, yer guess is 'bout right...."

Tell me if the looper of "Cluck Old Hen" as found on the website:http://www.bustedhearts.net/banjo/downloads.htmfeatures the index finger lead you guys are talking about. I love this looper, and its been great trying to emulate this sound.

The murphy method has a Ralph Stanley style banjo DVD, that I used, and she shows you the index finger lead style that Ralph uses, its pretty good and goes over the Stanley favs. Clinch Mountain Backstep, Little Maggie, How Mountain Girls can love and so on....

I highly recommend it, I have learned so much from the Murphy Method and she teaches you by ear, no tab, which opened up the door for me to improvise and play backup, cause she teaches the licks and each song leads into the next.

You won't be disappointed.

Ed

What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside?

Ralph is a great picker and certainly has his own style. I dont think i have ever heard him play a melody break anywhere past the 5th fret except a tag lick. Why is that? Im sure hes capable, of cource. Does he just not like the sound there except for backup?

A lot of the posts in this thread have mentioned the basic elements of the Stanley style of picking, including the index lead, the emphasis on the forward roll, the use of the index finger on the 2nd string 1st fret to imitate sawmill tuning, etc. I would only add the use of partial, rather than full chords, another echo in his playing of the older mountain styles of picking.

But more than any other of the early bluegrass banjo pioneers, I don't think you can separate Stanley's picking from his singing, the two are interlocked. Ralph's singing style more closely resembles and is more related to the old-time a cappella ballad singing style of the mountain folk, much more so than any of his bluegrass contemporaries. If you listen to recordings of two old-time banjoists, Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb, you will hear even more unadulterated versions of this style, and, I think, will understand better where Ralph is coming from. Stanley's a cappella rendition of the song/hymn Oh Death, from the soundtrack of Oh Brother, finally gave Stanley a public audience beyond bluegrass. Listen to the Dock Boggs version, recorded many years ago, and you will know better where all of this comes from.

I am a huge Stanley fan. Ralph's picking is the embodiment of de Saint-Exupery's wise statement that "perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..." Ralph's playing is what it needs to be, and no more. I own a 1928 TB-3 archtop with a Liberty repro neck, and another RB-5 clone built around an original 40 hole archtop ring. You just can't beat that old archtop sound. It's not for everybody, truly. Ralph's sound either reaches deep inside and grips you... or it doesn't, and like Felix, you will instead think of Stanley as a "Golden Calf," a quaint, anachronistic throwback, a style to be unlearned once you have grown up musically, and are ready to penetrate your personal glass ceiling. Perhaps Felix is right, and Ralph is a picker to be admired, but not emulated. I am not one to recommend slavish imitation; everyone should ultimately seek to develop their own style. But still, for myself, I think Ralph Stanley is a genuinely great, unique talent, and we will never see the likes of him again.

- Don Borchelt

"When I asked my cousin, Horney Rodgers, several years ago how he rated himself as a fiddler, he paused for a moment and replied, "I'm the only man that I ever heard that played the fiddle jest exactly the way I wanted to hear it played.""

Tell me if the looper of "Cluck Old Hen"...features the index finger lead you guys are talking about.

Yes, it does, for the most part. It's not the most straightforward example, since a lot of the melody is on the first string. But the entire break is forward rolls (or variations on them, with some single eighth notes interspersed) with the exception of two measures (measures 11 and 15). There's a couple instances in the B part where the thumb has to pick the melody notes, but everything else is index (or middle, where the melody notes fall on the first string as noted above).

Very well said. My thoughts exactly. I listen to lots of different players, but there is a sound & feel to Ralph's style that moves me more than any other player. As banjoman once said, "Ralph never strayed too far from the Mountain."

I fiinally had a chance to see him with The Clinch Mountain Boys this past summer. What a thrill it was to hear him perform and to shake his hand and say "thanks" after the show.

I could be wrong about this but it seems like an old Don Reno and Red Smiley gospel song uses the index finger lead. It's called "Some Beautiful Day".At least when I first started tinkering with the banjo thats the way I heard it.

First time I ever saw up close someones' hand on FMB it was a great picker Floyd Craig from Newlon, NC and he lead out with the index finger. Fast but a slight different sound. I just last week stumbled on how to do it with the thumb lead. I could never get my thumb the second time over to the 2 nd string fast enough for the timing , even slow as I am. {mussel memory maybe]But thanks to Eric and the new Jukebox thing I heard Royce'c pickin "In the Gravel Yard". Wow if you haven't heard it IMHO it's great, real bluegrass style. I kept listening to it over and over, with my banjo on my belly [as it don't reach my knee any more] trying it and saying to myself, how is he doing that. And all of a sudden there it was. I'm way slow of course but I now know I'm going to get it.Sorry about being so long. I better get to it before I forget it lol.

I agree with you whole heartedly Don. The Stanley sound is one of a kind. I get the wonderful privelege of spending a little time with Dr. Ralph every year at the Poppy Mountain Bluegrass Festival in Morehead, KY. He is an amazing part of american musical history. and as for the stanley style.... I am in the process of converting one of my banjos to an arch top tonering. i can't wait to get that sound. I am most interested in the clawhammer on the archtop. I LOVE that stanley style. He has been a huge vocal influence of mine too.

I have watched this forum for a while and don't understand. Most agree that it is very simplistic, but then some say it is hard and complicated. Some one help me here.

Seems to me that we are saying that Stanley plays with a straight forward roll, with the index, or pointer finger playing the melody. If this is correct, then I would think that it would be an easy place to start as we can all play a forward roll. And using that idea, it would seem that a beginner could learn songs quickly, as most of us can pick the melody and have trouble filling in. That would give more time to learn back up, or does that work the same?? can we play back up down the neck with just a forward roll and make it sound good and not boring.??all comments are welcome here

Ralph keeps that roll going. Sam Shelor also does a strong roll backup a lot, but not exclusively. They each sound good with their own style. It won't be boring, but when playing with others, someone with a strong banjo and little restraint could irritate a few people. I like the drive it adds to the music.

Ralph has a video out where he illustrates his playing. It's available on Ebay and probably Elderly and other music sources. It's dated now (Ralph Jr. was a young teen in the video), but the music is the same.

I don't see where the style is harder if learning as a beginner, but if you're playing more of a Scruggs style, retraining can be a challenge. Most teachers teach the Scruggs style. Finding a teacher might be difficult if you can't pick it ujp from the video. I think Ralph uses fewer techniques in his 3 finger picking, so it's easier in that respect. It's more of a straight ahead forceful picking style with good timing. Ralph leads a lot with his index finger, but also drops his thumb, so he's doing both. Likewise, learning a strict Scruggs style afterwards could be a challenge also. It depends on how versitile you are, I suppose.

... someone get Steve Sparkman to join the forum. He's the guy that could explain it the best. I think I'll invite him.

... someone get Steve Sparkman to join the forum. He's the guy that could explain it the best. I think I'll invite him.

Keith

Yeah Keith... do it. He has always been my favorite BG picker. Listening to the Clinch Mountain Country cd is the reason I wanted to play banjo in the first place. Somebody said awhile back that he was going to put out an instructional video, has anyone heard any more about that?

Hello againJust so every one knows, I personally like the driving backup with a steady straight forward roll. I compare the sound to a 1930 Ford Model A at an idle.If any one can tell me exactly how it is done, i will be beholding to them. I heard Travis Tritt play on the Opry once and that is the sound I am looking for. Much like Stanley's break in Pretty Polly.

Ralph did it for me!!! theres just somethin about that Stanley sound..

IMO Ralph is to the bluegrass banjer as John Lee Hooker is to blues guitar.. John was nowhere near technical,fancy ect but those cow licks just reach out and smack me in the face and gets me goin.. I do the same with old Stanley Brothers tunes as i do with John Lee sometimes just sit there in a trance and shake my head and say man!!!!

Michael----It's been a while, but the best I can remember Steve Sparkman (a fellow Harlan Countian ) was Dr. Ralph's banjo player at the All Star Bluegrass Celebration. Has been for a number of years, and still is.

Couchie wrote: "But if you like soulfull, brutally honest, hard driving, old time banjo, there is none finer that Dr. Ralph Stanley... After playing for 30 years or more, I've never had to unlearn anything that I learned from Ralph."

Amen, Brother Don.

"When I asked my cousin, Horney Rodgers, several years ago how he rated himself as a fiddler, he paused for a moment and replied, "I'm the only man that I ever heard that played the fiddle jest exactly the way I wanted to hear it played.""

An "old time" style of playing a tune like Pretty Polly is to "plant" your LH index finger on the second string, first fret and just leave it there while you catch the melody on the other strings at the third fret.

Ralph Stanley's music is awesome. It's simplistic, yet it has his own signature which is hard to mimic. His somewhat raw sound on the banjo is what attracts me to it. I like to get back to that mountain sound once in a while and the Stanley sound is the mountain sound. No one needs to play every song like Ralph, but certain situations work well with some of his licks thrown in there.

Well, just last night I was listening to the recording of Pretty Polly by a clawhammer picker named Ed Spencer, on the Smithsoniam Folkways recording Traditional Music from Grayson and Carroll Counties, Virginia. Spencer sounded like he was playing in sawmill tuning, except he was tuned down to the key of F, instead of G. A nice clean version, sounded a whole lot like Ralph's, except in clawhammer, but then again, they are from the same part of the country, so I guess that is not surprising. When he gets all the way through it, Spencer brushes the strings open just one time at the very end, like old timers often do, and just then you hear the unmistakable sound of the major chord. So he was holding that second string down at the first fret throughout, after all. Unlike in Ralph's version, I never heard the open second string once while he was actually picking. So like (the other) Don said, Ralph's style is based on the old time music that came before him. Hopefully, a whole lot of us pickers will carry on after he is done.

- Don Borchelt

"When I asked my cousin, Horney Rodgers, several years ago how he rated himself as a fiddler, he paused for a moment and replied, "I'm the only man that I ever heard that played the fiddle jest exactly the way I wanted to hear it played.""

Michael----It's been a while, but the best I can remember Steve Sparkman (a fellow Harlan Countian ) was Dr. Ralph's banjo player at the All Star Bluegrass Celebration. Has been for a number of years, and still is.

Here is a picture of the banjo player on the DVD. Is this Steve Sparkman? He looks quite young to have been with Ralph for several years.

Had to chime in here, I saw Dr. Ralph and Steve Sparkman at the Sanders theater at Harvard U. must be a couple of years ago now and will never forget it. Most of the show was the Ralph Stanley show with all his signature tunes including his then recent Oh Brother stuff. That was cool and he still has that amazing voice even now at what, 80?? Anyway he went off with the band still on the stage and they stepped up to do a couple of final numbers. Man, they put it to the floor, with Steve Sparkman leading the way, brought the whole brainy, ceiling-smashing, virtuosity-loving, simplicity eschewing Harvard crowd right out of their seats. Blew me away too. One of the must exciting Bluegrass bands I've seen and it kinda came out of left field as their on-stage demeanor when Ralph was up there was to say the least very relaxed.

Also gotta second that Steve Sparkman really nails the Stanley sound, which is part of the reason Ralph's never had another banjo player in the band I suppose. I do hear Scruggs in Sparkman's picking too though. He can really hammer away like Scruggs with strong powerful picking, perhaps using more thumb, and his timing is machine-like. Seemed to me Ralph's touch is a bit lighter and more syncopated at times. Steve's Smith Ridge CD is one of my favorites and Ralph picks a little on it as well - on CMB and Cripple Creek.

Wow, so I guess I worship Ralph afterall... And Steve Sparkman too. Whatta you know.... I'll have to start lookin for an archtop .

jw

"the womens all a laughin', the chillun all a cryin', mens all a hollerin', Old Tenbrooks a-flyin'"